Pujya Sri Mahaswamy Divya Charitram Part#65

14. Yatra to Kanchipuram, Chittur, Tirupathi and Venkatagiri

Swamigal entered the Prithvi Kshetra of Kancheepuram on Sunday, the twelfth day of the lunar month of Thai in the cyclic year Pramodootha (25-1-1931). There are numerous temples in this city. The legend says that Sri Kamakshi Ambal picked up a handful of earth from the Ekambresanathar temple, made a Siva lingam out of it and worshiped the Lord. Therefore it is considered a Prithvi Kshetra – one of the pancha bootha kshetras. The temple to Sri Kamakshi Ambal is situated right in the center of the city. None of the Siva temples in the city have the idol of the Goddess in them.

Kamakshi, who is in the form of performing tapas to attain Siva, remains as the reigning goddess to all the Siva temples there. The main gopurams of all the temples face towards Kamakshi Amman temple. When the temples have processions, they come around the Kamakshi Amman temple. Sri Adi Sankaracharya installed Sri Chakra inside this temple.Later, he ascended the Sarvagna Peetam here and attained Siddhi. Inside the Kamakshi temple, there is a sila idol of Sri Adi Sankara.

When our Swamigal entered this city which is the seat of Kamakoti Peetam, the citizens offered reverential and glorious welcome to him. Our Swamigal stayed at the mutt situated in Peria Kanchipuram for almost a month. He visited Ekambreswarar temple and Varadarajar temple as often as possible. However, he had darshan of Sri
Kamakshi Amman daily.

The Kumbabhishekam to Kamakshi Amman temple was conducted in 1840 by the 64th Acharya Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi Swamigal. Our Swamigal wished to renovate and repair the temple. He appointed Dubash Dandalam, Sri T.S.Ramaswamy Iyer of Best & Co, and Chennai as chairman of the committee to oversee this effort.

Swamigal saw some of the necessary repairs in the temple and expressed his desire to fix the problems as soon as possible. He also wanted to conduct during his lifetime, a kumbabhishekam to the temple, which was last conducted almost 90 years ago. As per his wishes, the efforts to renovate and repair the temple started immediately with the help of able artisans.

Swamigal stayed at Kanchipuram until the end of the month of April. Later he visited the temple at Utharamerur, where he read the ancient archeological artifacts and explained their meaning to the village officials gathered there. Utharamerur was famous for its archeological findings. He journeyed through the southern Chengelpur district and visited places like Vandavasi, Palur, Achirupakkam as well as Dindivanam and Marakkanam in the South Arcot district. Swamigal spent around two months in this area where arrangements for his stay were provided by Diwan Bahadur C.Arunachala Mudaliar, a close confidant of his purvashrama father.